1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to applications and the World Wide Web.
2. Background Art
Pop-ups have long been part of the web surfing experience. Pop-ups are separate windows that “pop up” while visiting a web page. Pop-ups may include advertisements, dialog boxes, software update notices, or other messages that seek a user's attention. Pop-ups may appear at anytime during or after a visit to a website. Some pop-ups are welcome while most others are not. Unwanted pop-ups may appear as multiple pop-up ads, banner ads, hover ads or pop-under ads. Pop-under ads appear only after a web browser page is closed as they pop-under the main browser window. Some pop-ups are generated by malware.
The most common way to handle pop-ups is to block them. Most popular web browsers include pop-up blocking tools. Third party software may also provide pop-up blockers. Pop-up blockers block most pop-ups generated by software such as JAVASCRIPT and ADOBE FLASH. However, some pop-ups still manage to appear. Pop-up ad creators have also made it more difficult to deal with pop-up ads once they do appear. For instance, a user may want to close a pop-up by clicking on the close window button in the pop-up window title bar. However, some pop-ups mislead the user by making the close window button unresponsive and by displaying a “Close” button that will not close the window but only lead to additional pop-ups.
Pop-up blockers have had mixed success in allowing legitimate or wanted pop-up windows. Pop-up blockers sometimes notify a user when a possibly legitimate pop-up window (part of a desired action or navigation) has been blocked. For example, these blockers may show a “pop-up blocked message” in message bar 120 on web page 110, as shown in the main browser window 100 of FIG. 1. A user may be asked to click on the message bar 120 or some other visual indicator in order to allow the blocked pop-up. The pop-up 130 would then be downloaded and then appear on the web page. Some of these pop-up blockers require multi-step configurations. Other pop-up blockers will simply block legitimate pop-ups.
What is needed are new methods and systems for handling pop-ups displayed to a user in a web page.